For rolled tissue products, such as bathroom tissue and paper towels, consumers generally prefer firm rolls having a large diameter. A firm roll conveys superior product quality and a large diameter conveys sufficient material to provide value for the consumer. From the standpoint of the tissue manufacturer, however, providing a firm roll having a large diameter is a challenge. In order to provide a large diameter roll, while maintaining an acceptable cost of manufacture, the tissue manufacturer must produce a finished tissue roll having higher roll bulk. One means of increasing roll bulk is to wind the tissue roll loosely. Loosely wound rolls however, have low firmness and are easily deformed, which makes them unappealing to consumers. As such, there is a need for tissue rolls having high bulk as well as good firmness. Furthermore, it is desirable to provide a rolled tissue product having a tissue sheet with sufficient basis weight so as to provide greater absorbency and hand protection in use.
Although it is desirable to provide a sheet having sufficient basis weight, bulk and good roll firmness, improvement of one of these properties typically comes at the expense of another. For example, as the basis weight of the tissue sheets is increased, achieving high roll bulk becomes more challenging since increasing basis weight reduces the number of wraps of a spirally wound roll at the same roll weight.
Finally, in addition to the high roll bulk and good roll firmness, consumers also often prefer multi-ply tissue for the softness and absorbency characteristics inherent to multi-ply tissue structures. Hence the manufacturer producing singly-ply tissue webs faces the additional challenge of producing single ply webs that are comparable in softness and absorbency to multi-ply webs, while striving to economically produce a tissue roll that meets these often-contradictory parameters of large diameter, good firmness, high quality sheets and acceptable cost.